[devildogwife]

Thanks for sharing the article. What a beautiful family.

[amyfk]

Thanks for sharing this article. I am glad that this couple finally acheived their dream of being a family.
I have not personally heard of African American couples adopting white kids, except for this family and Lionel Ritchie(in other words, famous families). Nonetheless, in the end, it's really the love that counts. It would be nice if the world were color blind.
Amy K, NJ

[bajj]

One article I read says she her race is hispanic. Of course, hispanic is not a race, but, oh well. She is gorgeous and they are a beautiful family. I think being a public figure, someone would have negative comments no matter what they did. It is sad that people look down on them for adopting because they didn't adopt black. I am assuming this, but I would think they probably were like a lot of us and just thrilled to become parents regardless of race and/or gender.

[Sohmakun]

Here are some comments from MediaTakeOut.com:

Edited to remove link due to profanity. Sorry! You can google it though or type in the url.

WARNING: There is a bit of profanity on a few of the comments and others are a little hostile.

[nickchris]

Nice story, and their faith as a young couple, is very heartwarming. Sohmakum, that is an interesting link, do you usually read that site.. and can you tell my old self, are some of these comments, the new age type of expressions? lol

[Sohmakun]

Originally Posted by nickchris

Nice story, and their faith as a young couple, is very heartwarming. Sohmakum, that is an interesting link, do you usually read that site.. and can you tell my old self, are some of these comments, the new age type of expressions? lol

Not really, I googled the story to find the orginal NY Times story and this link came into my search engine. To be honest with you, I have never ever heard of The Wares Family until now.

[nickchris]

I know I am not a football fan myself. In my cyber searching, i have not recalled coming across this site, it is so extreme. If my father, or Dh for that matter ever found me reading stuff like this.. oh boy.. lol !!. Me I will be blushing for days.

[loveajax]

Sohmahkun, I have to say that I was also shocked at the "comments"....not the language so much as some of the attitudes! It also seems like this is a couple that was not looking to adopt at the time but Marcus' father (a minister, I believe) had an emom in his congregation that was looking to place. I think it is such a beautiful, wonderful thing. What a beautiful family!

This is getting a little off track, but I just got back from Paris and I was thrilled to see families of all mixed races, etc. I hate that America has this horrible "racial history" (I know other countries do too) but seeing this kind of story makes my heart sing.

[Jensboys]

I attend a camp for families with children of African heritage ( essentially can be from any country ) and at the camp there are now two families that regularly attend that have black parents and white kids.

I camped last week with my kids and met a family (met kids first) two black teenagers, two white teenagers. My own prejudice (and the fact I know LOTS of families composed like that) I assumed the parents were white.

Met the parents - black parents, two bio kids, two adopted white kids.

I think it will get more and more common and I say GREAT.

[ChromaKelly]

Sohmahkun, I have to say that I was also shocked at the "comments"....not the language so much as some of the attitudes! It also seems like this is a couple that was not looking to adopt at the time but Marcus' father (a minister, I believe) had an emom in his congregation that was looking to place. I think it is such a beautiful, wonderful thing. What a beautiful family!

Same here. It's not like they specified they wanted a CC child. Wouldn't people be saying it would be awful if they were connected with this emom and then turned her down because of race?

[nickchris]

I am standing by my prev. reaction to the type of site, its seems to be an all around gossip type site. I grew up in and near the inner city parts of ny, and such raw language, is and have never been my thing, nor was i exposed to such.. where do these folks come from? Add that to this type of topic, and its comes over extremely abrasive. However even in its abrasive manner, the povs are not monolithic.

[elledarcy]

I hate, hate, hate all the comments on that site where people say how adopted children "need a good home." It just reinforce the idea that adopted children are penniless orphans and adoptive parents are saints.

They didn't want to give a child a good home, they just wanted to have a child to love and care for like anyone else. No one says pregnant women are giving a fetus a good womb or comment how nice it is of bio parents to bring a child into the world!

Good for them and their beautiful family!

[Sleeplvr]

It helps to understand something before hating it....
That was an African American website and AA's adopt primarily from the foster care system not private agency adoption. So the "kids need a good home" comment most likely came from that viewpoint. I know that among my AA friends and family they had zero knowledge of private agency infant adoption and I had to educate them on it. They had a very hard time wrapping their minds around how someone would willingly place a child for adoption. If you are coming from a foster care adoption mindset there is a big difference between someone placing a child and having one removed due to abuse or neglect.

[loveajax]

Sleeplvr, I understand that, but some of the comments calling him an "Uncle Tom" and such just bothered me. I suspect they are from people who never went thru infertility/pg loss, etc. Also, how does anyone know the baby's race...just from looking at the picture? My DD is biracial and was that light-skinned as an infant. (I realize most people commenting were supportive, the ones who weren't threw me for a loop!).

[Vogi2002]

I have mixed reactions to the story to tell you the truth.

Transracial adoption, to me, is a "last resorts" of such FOR THE CHILDREN. Not to say we as CC parents are any less parents, but the children will face difficulties in thier lifetime brought on because of the fact. I don't think any of us can disagree with this, and we are not naive enough to say it isn't true. I am not saying that they are going to have bad childhoods or anything of the sort. I just fully realize that I cannot give him everything they need in terms of race, which is why it will good for him to grow up with postive AA role models.

Adoption shouldn't be about the parents, it's should be about the children, so if there ARE plenty of good homes for this child with it's same race...should we explore those options first in order to prevent these hardships? Is it fair to the child to put them in a home with a vastly different culture when it is not needed? I don't know...I don't know the answers to these questions.

I think there IS some truth to those who say children should go to homes of thier same race. Not because the parents won't love the children enough, or anything, but because of the children. Because it will be harder for them in terms of racial identity in most cases. I see why they say that, but right now there isn't enough Hispanic, AA, etc homes availabe in private adoption for that to be made possible.

I am on the fence, and must admit I see good and a little bad with this story, though I see how it was a "friend of a friend" adoption.

BUT they are a beautiful family, and they show race matters very little when it comes to the love for your child. I think that is positive & in the end it's not my place to judge!